Canadian freshman enrollment increases despite rise in tuition

Posted by admin on Sep 21, 2010 in News | 0 comments

This year is the largest Canadian freshman class TWU has ever received, but numbers on international and transfer students continue to fall for numerous reasons; for one, the U.S.A. economy continues to be in a slump. “It has been a big feeder for TWU, but we had to come to grips with the changing economy, and had to combat that by putting more money on the table,” said Dr. Todd Erickson, TWU’s Vice Provost.

Another reason is because two years ago, Premier Gordon Campbell made Kwantlen and the University of Fraser Valley official universities rather than colleges, which makes their four-year degree programs more credible and allows students to pursue graduate degrees afterwards. Because of this, students are more inclined to attend these schools when they would otherwise attend TWU, creating a dent in transfer volume in the past two years since the change. To counteract this, there have been major changes in budgeting strategy for financial aid in hopes of raising enrolment numbers.

In the past, in terms of financial aid, TWU would target prospective students that wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend due to their financial situations. But Erickson and TWU’s financial team have been flowing more funds into scholarships and bursaries, which have gone up by more than 33 percent, allowing funds to reach more prospective students. About seven million dollars is now being poured into scholarships and, as a result, bursary funds are higher than ever before.

Trinity Western University’s income relies heavily on tuition, and only five percent of the budget is raised annually by private donors most of which goes towards TWU’s scholarship and bursary fund. Tuition was raised approximately 5.1 percent this year, which is a smaller increase than last year’s. Increases in tuition fees are said to be inevitable, and they have been slowly increasing for the past two decades, “but we’re trying to keep them as manageable as possible,” said Erickson, who is making this possible by slowing down the rate at which it is rising. “We want to be held accountable for the money the Lord gives us. We have become more transparent about where the money is going, and it makes us feel more comfortable that we are spending money wisely,”
said Erickson.

Author: Rebecca Selvig